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Now, let’s dive into something important. Many woke up today to discover a massive outage or to find their Windows computers facing the infamous blue screen of death. While CrowdStrike suggests it's just a software update glitch, there is growing suspicion that it might be something more serious.

Let’s cover what’s been affected and what we know so far about this situation.

What’s Happening?

A major cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike announced that they’ve pushed out an automatic update to its security software on clients’ machines.

They claim this update inadvertently included a bug that caused machines to crash, resulting in the Blue Screen of Death, which appears on a Windows PC when a critical software error occurs.

Below is an image posted on social media of this error happening in the office boardroom, where no one is able to access their Windows computer.

What has CrowdStrike said?

At 5:45AM EST, CrowdStrike’s CEO George Kurtz made a statement on X.

Kurtz said: “CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack.”

“The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.”

“We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”

CrowdStrike’s response seems more like damage control rather than a solution, leaving many systems still broken and businesses disrupted.

What Services and Businesses are Impacted?

Numerous types of businesses and services are impacted in countries around the world, these include:

• Hospitals and doctor’s offices

• Airlines

• Grocery stores

• Banks

• Retail stores

• Emergency services

• Small, medium, and large companies

The above list are examples of the types of institutions around the world that have been reported to be impacted in some way. Not all these types of institutions are impacted in all countries.

In certain countries, affected hospitals have had to revert to manual, analog methods for processing patients to maintain operations. At numerous airports, check-in counters were unable to handle travelers.

Additionally, in many retail stores, both manned and self-checkout machines stopped working. Social media reports also indicate that many restaurants and small businesses have had to switch to cash-only transactions due to the malfunctioning of payment terminals.

What is CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike Holdings is an American cybersecurity company with a global customer base, leading to the widespread impact of this outage. They essentially claim to manage the security of companies' IT infrastructure to “prevent threats like ransomware and cyberattacks”.

Many theorize that CrowdStrike works with the deep state. Not only do dozens of government officials, including the notable trader guru Nancy Pelosi, have significant investments in the company, but they have also been working closely together since its inception.

In 2012, Shawn Henry, a former FBI official, was hired to lead CrowdStrike Services, Inc., focusing on proactive and incident response services. The company launched its first product, CrowdStrike Falcon, in June 2013, providing endpoint protection, threat intelligence, and attribution.

In May 2014, CrowdStrike's reports assisted the U.S. Department of Justice in charging five Chinese military hackers with economic cyber espionage against U.S. corporations. The company also uncovered the activities of Energetic Bear, a group linked to the Russian Federation, targeting global energy sector entities. Following the Sony Pictures hack, CrowdStrike identified the involvement of the North Korean government and detailed the attack's execution. In 2014, they also identified members of Putter Panda, a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group.

In May 2015, CrowdStrike disclosed the VENOM vulnerability in the Quick Emulator (QEMU) hypervisor, which allowed attackers to access sensitive information. By October 2015, CrowdStrike had identified Chinese hackers targeting technology and pharmaceutical companies around the time of a U.S.-China agreement against economic espionage, suggesting a violation of that agreement.

In July 2015, Google invested in CrowdStrike's Series C funding round. Subsequent Series D and Series E rounds brought total funding to $480 million by May 2019. In 2017, CrowdStrike achieved a valuation exceeding $1 billion with an estimated annual revenue of $100 million, and by June 2018, its valuation surpassed $3 billion. Key investors include Telstra, March Capital Partners, Rackspace, Accel Partners, and Warburg Pincus.

CrowdStrike went public on the Nasdaq in June 2019. It’s value went from just a few billion to almost $100 billion at its peak, in just a few years. Insane!

CrowdStrike Birthed the Russia-Trump Conspiracy

CrowdStrike has has also been involved in the investigations of several high-profile cyberattacks in the political world, including the 2015–16 cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and the 2016 email leak involving the DNC.

For more context, CrowdStrike was the company the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hired instead of going to the FBI to investigate Hillary Clinton’s server after their files were leaked during the 2016 election. CrowdStrike attributed the hack to Russia, which led to the Mueller Report's claims of ‘Russian Collusion’ against Trump.

Here is the transcript of Trump’s July 25th call with his Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which got him impeached before the 2020 Election:

This history adds to the speculation that the recent disruption may be more than just a simple software update malfunction. But after all, would a company worth over $83 billion actually admit to being hacked and risk ruining their reputation forever? Given the sheer scale of this outage, I think their plan to claim it's just a faulty update is expected but not very believable. It's also common knowledge to test updates thoroughly before rolling them out globally

Response and Aftermath

Early Friday morning, a faulty update was allegedly pushed live by CrowdStrike. The company acknowledged the issue: “We have widespread reports of BSODs on Windows hosts, occurring on multiple sensor versions.”

Although CrowdStrike was allegedly able to “revert” the faulty update, machines already affected remain unfixed.

Many have tried calling into CrowdStrike’s support line, however, due to the scale of this outage, they are playing a pre-recorded message acknowledging the fault: “Thanks for contacting CrowdStrike support. CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows related to the Falcon sensor.”

Troy Hunt, the creator of HaveIBeenPwned, a data breach checker, posted on X: “This will be the largest IT outage in history.”

A thread of sys admins on Reddit is also buzzing with discussions. “This is an insane event for the world’s infrastructure,” said one user. Others are sharing how massive this issue is for their companies, with one mentioning over 14,000 endpoints affected.

As the market opened, CrowdStrike's stock price plummeted from $343.05 to under $299. This sharp decline reflects investor concern over the extent and impact of the issue, as well as the potential long-term damage to CrowdStrike's reputation and reliability.

The situation remains fluid, with many businesses still grappling with the fallout and seeking reliable solutions. For those affected, the disruption has been more than just an inconvenience—it's a reminder of how critical robust cybersecurity and thorough update testing are in our increasingly digital world.

We’ll continue to monitor this situation closely and provide updates on X as they become available! On a side note, hasn’t this been a rollercoaster of a month? Assassination attempt on Trump, Biden done for, massive global outage - I wonder what will happen next!

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